


The Experiment

by HereInLies



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 19:59:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14433000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereInLies/pseuds/HereInLies
Summary: Natasha never thought she could have children. And then Bruce and Tony and a crazy idea came along.





	The Experiment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chosenfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chosenfire/gifts).



“Are you sure about this?” Bruce’s voice was quiet, steady, a note of worry hovering on the edge. Tony was watching her carefully, too, standing just behind Bruce.

“We don’t have to,” Tony said, and she knew how much those words must have pained him.

She thought she had been doing fine, hiding everything from them. After all, she wanted this. She did. Desperately. 

She hadn’t thought she did for the longest time. Not that she had a choice for the longest time. The Red Room had seen to that. But then Clint had the first baby and then the second and then the third. And then Wanda had messed with her head and the dreams had started. First just occasionally and then all the time and then they were constant and she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think of anything else.

She hadn’t meant to tell Tony about them. She hadn’t meant to tell anyone about them, but she’d woken up one night, tears streaming down her face, and he was there, holding her against him and somehow she’d realized she’d fallen asleep in the middle of the common room. And somehow, against the dark of the room and his hand rubbing her back gently and his whispers trying to soothe her, it had all just come tumbling out. How she couldn’t have a baby, how she wanted to have a baby, how having a baby was all she could think about and she didn’t know how to make it go away.

He’d held her and comforted her and finally rocked her back to sleep in his arms, and when she had woken up in the morning it had been snuggled up in her own in her own room — alone. Tony didn’t mention anything when she saw him later that day, and she had been grateful. She thought it was a subject neither of them would speak about again.

Until a few months later when Tony had asked her to come down to the lab because he and Bruce had something to show her. She had gone, expecting a weapons upgrade or a better suit component. She hadn’t expected them to tell her they had come up with a way to give her a baby if she still wanted it.

The same technology they had been using to heal their bullet wounds and stab wounds and everything else that happened on missions, Tony and Bruce had tweaked, and they could use it, they said, to reverse what the Red Room did to her. And then they could artificially inseminate her.

It was risky and not a guarantee, but they would watch her and take care of her and they thought there were good odds she could be a mother.

She had agreed instantly back then. But now she was here, standing in front of them, naked except for the hospital-like gown she was wearing, and she knew whatever she had been trying to keep from them must be showing on her face. Fear that she was getting her hopes up. Fear that they would try this and it wouldn’t work. Fear that they would try this and it would work and she would be a horrible mother. Fear that once she got pregnant she would realize she was never meant to be a mother.

Fear. So much fear.

“It’s okay, Natasha,” Bruce said again. “If you don’t want to …”

“No, I do,” she managed to choke out, and she heard her voice break and she cringed. She could run into the worst situations and not even hesitate, but the idea of letting them try and put a baby inside her … she felt like she was going to pass out.

She felt a warm hand on her arm, steadying her, and she turned her head to look into Tony’s eyes.

“I’m scared, too,” he told her, “but we can do this.”

We.

Natasha took in a deep breath. She was being selfish. It would be Tony’s child too. They all agreed. She didn’t want an anonymous donor, and they had been dancing around this thing between the two of them for months, and when he had offered, it had just felt right.

But now …

Oh, god, what was she doing?

But Tony’s hand was moving from her elbow and wrapping around her back, and then he was pulling her against his chest, and she could hear his steady breathing in her ear as he wrapped her in his arms, his lips settling gently against her forehead.

“You’re not alone,” he told her. “For any part of this. I’m right here. And Bruce is here too. We got you.”

She nodded against him and he squeezed her tighter. 

Finally, he pulled back a little, letting go of her for an instant to reach for both her hands. He held them tight in his grip before moving backward toward the machine, letting her follow him, trying to control her breathing and stop herself from crying.

He helped her up into the machine, got her positioned before very gently reaching behind her to untie her hospital gown and slip it off her.

She felt herself begin to shake, lying there completely exposed and vulnerable, but Tony was only looking in her eyes.

“It’s going to be okay, Nat,” he told her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Bruce walk toward them, a long needle in his hand.

“When you wake up,” Bruce said, “it will be all over. Are you ready?”

Natasha nodded, then closed her eyes. A moment later she felt a prick in her arm. A moment after that she knew nothing.

•••

It was the longest two weeks of her life. And by the time she was down in the lab again, Bruce drawing her blood, she thought she was literally going to pass out.

It was only Tony, holding her in his lap, that kept her upright.

It seemed forever, watching Bruce check her blood, do the tests, look at the results. But then finally, finally, Bruce turned, and Natasha almost threw up.

Bruce was smiling.

“Congratulations,” he said, “You both are going to be parents.”


End file.
